"The knot is in the human realm, and there is no noise of cars and horses. Asked Jun He Neng'er, his heart was far away from himself. Under the eastern fence of the chrysanthemum, you can leisurely see the South Mountain. The mountain atmosphere is good day and night, and the birds are returning. There is a true meaning in this, and the desire to argue has forgotten. ”
——It is very appropriate to use this poem by Tao Yuanming to describe Jiang Wenzhan, whose works are artistically outstanding in the painting forest, spiritually advocating nature, indifferent and open-minded in life, and painting more than a jiazi's fate, so that he has a sober understanding and rare transparency about his beloved painting career.
Jiang Gong painting style:
Art and sexuality are integrated, and the language of painting is distinct
Jiang Wenzhan's distinctive painting language is called "Jiang Gong Painting Style", and he is one of the pioneering figures of modern freehand flower and bird painting.
Enjoying Jiang Wenzhan's album, it can be found that the composition of his flower and bird paintings is longitudinal and open, the lines are thin and changeable, the colors are bright and elegant, pay attention to the coordination and contrast of the block surface, and get rid of the old literary popularity of traditional flower and bird paintings in form and artistic conception, and have the abstraction and expressiveness of modern painting.
The author can't help but sigh, how many years of accumulation will it take to have the excitement in front of you. From creation to completion, a painting works carry the painter's natural disposition and aesthetic pursuit, condense his hard work and sweat, and are also the realistic process of the painter's experience of life, displaying his personal spiritual qualities and aesthetic pursuits. The hardships and difficulties are perhaps only clearer to the parties?
For Jiang Wenzhan, talent is innate. Jiang Wenzhan's father graduated from the physics department of Peking University, but he loved Peking Opera since childhood, and the versatility in his genes was passed on to his children.
"My brothers and sisters are more engaged in art, my sister and brother-in-law are both professors of drama, my brother was a professor of Southern Art, and although our family is not a scholarly family, it can be regarded as an intellectual family." When I was a child, I was not exposed to systematic art education, but I liked painting very much, and I was also very persistent about it, and in 1957, I was admitted to the Northwest Art College (now Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts) and began to receive systematic art education, which laid the foundation for me to take this road. ”
After graduating from university, Jiang Wenzhan worked in Xi'an Special Craft Factory, engaged in arts and crafts design and production. After resuming the college entrance examination in 1978, he was admitted to his alma mater for graduate school. After graduating from graduate school, he stayed on to teach in the Department of Chinese Painting, and left his alma mater for Shenzhen after 5 years.
"'Seeking change' prompted me to come to Shenzhen, but what I saw and felt here strengthened my creative direction, that is, returning to tradition." Talking about this experience, Jiang Wenzhan still remembers it vividly.
Originally, although Shenzhen was the forefront of reform and opening up at that time, all kinds of new ideas were available in Shenzhen, but there were no cultural units and art academies, and painters were all working in companies, which made Jiang Wenzhan very unaccustomed. After a year of creating abstract paintings in Shenzhen, Jiang Wenzhan returned to Xi'an, where he accepted an invitation from Wang Xijing, chairman of the Shaanxi Provincial Artists Association, and was transferred to the Xi'an Academy of Chinese Painting as vice president.
For more than 60 years, Jiang Wenzhan's fate with fine arts has been changing day by day. Jiang Wenzhan has emerged in the art circle since he was young, and his rich life experience, solid aesthetic skills, and a wide range of hobbies such as literature, philosophy, calligraphy, and seal engraving have nourished Jiang Wenzhan's art and works. In 1996, he held exhibitions in Beijing and Shanghai, which caused quite a stir. In recent years, he has published 8 personal painting books, of which the work "Sheng Hetu" was included in the art textbooks of primary and secondary schools of the State Education Commission. He also went abroad and held solo exhibitions in Japan, Hong Kong, France and other places.
The cultivation of being indifferent and independent has created the artistic character of Jiang Wenzhan's poetry, calligraphy and painting, which blend and complement each other, and co-construct the style of the gods.
Standing in front of Jiang Wenzhan's works, I was attracted by a strong modern cultural atmosphere, and at the same time infected by a strong, warm and relaxed rhythm with vitality. His works include the breeze and the moonlight, as well as the clouds and the babbling of white streams. Whether it is the begonia white pigeon, the lotus pond kingfisher, the autumn puff wasp, the pomegranate pheasant, and the spring water playing goose, they all exude the vitality of life. Quietly feel the elegant mood in it, after the breeze, the invigorating feeling of returning from stepping on the flowers comes through the rice paper.
Elegant, leisurely and comfortable artistic beauty, idyllic and poetic symbolic expression, in Jiang Wenzhan's pen, the artistic language and sexual spirit are properly integrated, and the "Jiang Gong painting style" has a high degree of recognition. With its peculiar composition, vigorous lines, exaggerated shapes, bright colors and cheerful melodies, his works have injected a fresh vitality into the art of Chinese flower and bird painting today, broadened the form of expression, charm and spiritual connotation of flower and bird painting creation, and reclaimed a free painting style with great personality and vitality, "the wind god is dashing and does not lag behind things", forming a distinct personal painting language.
Scholar-type painter:
Painting and heart, the spiritual home built by qinqi calligraphy and painting
In the early 1980s, Jiang Wenzhan's flower and bird paintings have been quite influential throughout the country, and gradually formed their own distinct personality and painting language, which is unique in the flower and bird painting world, and his Jiang's painting style has influenced many young and middle-aged painters. He is recognized by the industry as a truly learned and talented painter.
Some people say that Jiang Wenzhan shows the artistic spirit needed by the times with abundant and harmonious brush and ink. Indeed, Jiang Wenzhan's paintings are greeted with the warmth and warmth of the sun, the harmony and cordiality of the spring breeze, the depth and distance of poetry, and the graceful and flexible movement of dance. His paintings are an ode to the love of all living things and an insistence on protecting the spiritual homeland.
Jiang Wenzhan is a typical scholar-type painter, but also a "player" who is familiar with piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, in addition to the artistic conception of poetry, the agility of dance, and the colorful colors, there is also a special sense of rhythm, which is related to his long-term practice of guqin.
Speaking of the guqin, Mr. Jiang Wenzhan was very interested, "Playing the piano not only makes me relax, but also a way for me to find feelings." Talking about this, he also told the author about the characteristics of his favorite songs such as "Pingsha Falling Goose", "Encounter with the Dead", "Autumn Wind Words" and so on.
Talking about the relationship between guqin and painting, Jiang Wenzhan further explained, "In the Ming Dynasty, there was a guqin theorist Xu Shangying, who had a view of qin theory: 'Heart and finger together, finger and string, string and sound, sound and heart together'. Xu Shangying's guqin theory is applied to my paintings, that is, 'heart and hand, hand and pen, pen and paper, paper and painting, painting and heart', simply put, it is to calm the mind, the heart and the pen are one, so that the effect of the painting may be what you want. And painting and heart are the same. ”
For many years, Jiang Wenzhan did not like to be ostentatious and has been committed to studying and learning. "I created The Red Grass Garden because I felt that the creative environment at that time was relatively frivolous, and my social activities were more, and I wanted to avoid the influence of external factors as much as possible and spend my time on painting and creation." In addition, the ancients said that painting is the way of loneliness, and I want to have a quiet creative environment. When it comes to the topic of "low-key", Jiang Wenzhan's explanation convinces the author, "Painting itself should be thinking, it should be quiet, and when you enter the creative state, you may be able to interrupt your train of thought with a phone call." If you are in the process of freehand painting creation, the feeling and expression may not be continuous, and you may even have to start painting again. ”
It is precisely because of the harsh requirements for the state of creation, Jiang Wenzhan, who "walks the heart", with a lot of fluttering, the work reflects a unique feeling of objective nature, not so much as the realization of nature, but rather the expression of his state of mind and survival experience. Consciously or unconsciously, he weakened the descriptiveness of painting and strengthened the expressiveness, adopted beautiful and vivid colors, integrated his artistic intuition, talent and heart with the flowers and birds of nature, and made the vocabulary of traditional painting heterogeneous and homogeneous, he changed the flowers and birds of "no self" into "flowers and birds with me", and the traditional structural form into a modern structural form.
Over the years, He has devoted himself to the study of the expression of freehand flower and bird paintings, and today, Jiang Wenzhan has derived a strong modern consciousness with his majestic and bold brush and ink, simple and exaggerated shapes, and abstract plane visual patterns, which have impacted the contemporary flower and bird painting world that needs vitality.
Mei Mosheng, a famous painter and one of the top ten art news figures, once wrote in the preface to Jiang Wenzhan's album: "Mr. Wenzhan's work is a north painting with a south wind. The boldness and fluency of its transportation line, the simple generalization, the spicy and thick use of ink, the gorgeous and beautiful color, the unique style of its own tree, from which you can vaguely glimpse the influence of Qin and Shaanxi culture, and the style of Haipai painting, which is self-ingenious and attracts the attention of the world. ”
Impressionism everyone:
Value resurrection, creating a very paradigmatic way of creating flowers and birds
Some critics say that Jiang Wenzhan is an impressionist among contemporary flower and bird painting artists, and the joy and sadness, unrestrained and tranquil, bright and deep, vigorous and painful, all of which are strongly related to the development of the times and the characteristics of the times, he can always integrate the rhythm of the times and the sentiments of life into the whole of the work, in the different situations of wind, rain and snow, morning light, sunshine and sunset, pay attention to the details of the gods, internal and external rhymes.
Jiang Wenzhan's work "Young Beauty and Old Coming Rich", dry lotus and lotus seeds are accompanied by beautiful lotus flowers in the Mist of July. The picture reveals a sense of vividness, and the color has been improved on top of the original color of the flowers and trees, pure and bright, brilliant and dappled, and dazzling. Here, the dashing color, the fresh brushwork, the brisk and clear rhythm, and the unique aesthetic tone reach the hearts of the people, which also makes the works have a certain modern meaning.
Some commentators believe that one of the most valuable connotations of Jiang Wenzhan's flower and bird painting works is to guide flower and bird paintings to return to nature, and to reproduce the inner harmony between man and nature, man and environment, and man and heart in the form of art. The function of flower and bird painting that should not be lost or weakened is to be close to nature and embrace nature. Jiang Wenzhan's creative process has found and confirmed a very exemplary and exemplary creative path for the art of flower and bird painting to become an art that is one with nature and in harmony with life.
Jiang Wenzhan's original or original freehand flower and bird art has changed the traditional style of Chinese flower and bird painting and become a new artistic practice characterized by modernity and compatibility. The conceptual system and creation system he established for the contemporary flower and bird painting art have greatly stimulated the innovative thinking of flower and bird artists, and promoted the creation of traditional flower and bird painting to reach a new height at a higher, newer, better and more lively technical and artistic level, thus truly contributing to the realization of value resurrection of this "court art" and "literati art" under the illumination of the spirit of contemporary art.
Jiang Wenzhan changed the aesthetic misunderstanding that people do not attach so much importance to the art of flower and bird painting, and even feel insignificant, he has restored the dignity and nobility of flower and bird painting, as well as the artistic characteristics of flesh and blood, and now people can regard art, including flower and bird painting art, as an eternal art with wisdom, the most talent and the most fashionable.
In the 1990s, The Shaanxi art world rose to the fore liu wenxi, Wang Ziwu, Wang Xijing, Jiang Wenzhan, Cui Zhenkuan and other powerful painters, who continued to explore the subject matter and form of expression along the road of the "Chang'an School". In the new century, the "Chang'an School" gave birth to important branches, forming the second climax of Shaanxi fine arts. They are based on the academy and advocate the concept of learning from life, learning from tradition, and learning from the people. Jiang Wenzhan is a representative figure of the Chang'an School of Painting.
Looking at Jiang Wenzhan's works in different periods, we can find that his flower and bird paintings are also inextricably linked to the northwest style in which he lives. His paintings are rich in emotion, undiminished passion, and romantic and colorful, so that flower and bird paintings have stepped out of the nest of literati paintings and become large paintings that can shake people's hearts like landscape paintings and figure paintings. His works have been difficult to use the traditional aesthetic language to stereotype the evaluation, full of the Great Northwest's special sense of space, movement, rhythm. Compared with the flower and bird paintings with Jiangnan characteristics, Jiang Wenzhan's works can be said to liberate the creative elements of flower and bird paintings from the program and content, making it a modern lyrical art carrier with sound, light, color and rhyme.
Jiang Wenzhan believes that pen and ink are lyrical and expressive, which is influenced by poetry, especially by the poetic style of Chu and Han. "Emotions and deeds take the meaning of the wind and the turmoil, and the Yang Shu Yin is the heart of heaven and earth" (Sun Guoting's "Book Genealogy Sequence"), the core of the wind and the turmoil is expression, is to write the general idea. Emotions in the deepest parts of the soul, or speeches as poems, or songs, or dancing with hands, or books or paintings, are all in line with the cosmic laws of yin and yang. This tradition of freehand expression runs through ancient and modern times in poetry, and in painting, it is pushed to a new stage by the Song and Yuan literati painting movement. Su Shi, Wen Tong, Mi Jia father and son, their improvised ink opera works have influenced a generation of painting styles, they pursue a transcendent, freely stretched ideological realm, in the abstraction of painting brush and ink, excavated the deepest emotional rhythm of life, they disdain to take the shape as a crane, marching outside the law. This kind of rewriting and emphasizing the literati style of expressing the elegance in the chest has always influenced the development of Chinese painting, and many masters and innovative painting schools appeared in the Qingming and Ming Dynasties, all of which expressed the emotions of their lives in the abstract melody of pen and ink. Therefore, we must recognize this excellent tradition of painting and study this excellent tradition. The so-called "pen and ink game" embodies the thoughts of a generation of painters and the pulse of the times in the ink play, then, this kind of "ink play" should be a special law of Chinese freehand painting creation.
Based on this, Jiang Wenzhan's flower and bird paintings convey the natural beauty and spiritual rhythm that gushes from all sides in a light and bright simple expression. His paintings of flowers and birds overflow a very uncommon color of life from the inside out, with contemplation in joy, reason in dreams, and longing in intoxication. In particular, he effectively puts the artistic realm of flower and bird painting in a more open and sustainable aesthetic vision, and constantly seeks new forms, new connotations, new values and new characters in the art of flower and bird painting.
Therefore, Jiang Wenzhan's flower and bird paintings have more sobriety and tranquility, and less noise and whitewashing. As the great philosopher Rodin famously said, "Nature is the only guide that must be followed." She gives us an impression of the truth, for she reveals to us her forms, and if we imitate them sincerely, she can show the unity of our forms and enable them to manifest. ”
Inclusiveness:
Blending East and West, let the flower and bird painting enter the world art hall
Some people say that Jiang Wenzhan's works originate from life and are full of vitality, which is an organic combination of reality and artistry, and is also a witness to the education of the public with great beautification. Therefore, Jiang Wenzhan's flower and bird paintings transcend the level of art for art's sake, and become a medium for the soul and nature to know each other, and the real and credible, true and lovely brush and ink directly convey the breath, color, light, fragrance and rhyme of nature.
Jiang Wenzhan believes that traditional pen and ink is the foundation of our culture, which needs to be seriously studied and inherited, focusing on expressing aesthetic ideas and the inner world, rather than simply imitating. He established a dashing, flexible and strange artistic style, and created a modern freehand flower and bird painting, which can be called a contemporary freehand flower and bird painting.
But Jiang Wenzhan opposed being called a "master" by others, explaining that the master first needs to be affirmed by "history", and secondly, his cultivation and talent are inherited from the past, can inherit the traditional culture of China, and at the same time have an enlightening effect on future generations. He believes that although he has painted all his life, there are still many problems to explore in art, "In artistic creation, painters seek strength from tradition, integrate their own life experiences, and try to explore personal artistic characteristics in the development law of art, which is the pursuit of most artists." I'm actually a picky perfectionist, and even though all my work is from the heart, I'm still looking for the feeling, the state of creation, after the technique goes to the top and becomes a 'work of art' in the eyes of others. ”
Jiang Wenzhan is an artist who pays attention to starting from the heart, constantly pondering and deliberate, and his mastery of the comprehensive language of art is particularly prominent, which stems from the fact that he constantly adjusts and polishes the work in the creative process, often for weeks or even longer, before he can complete a work. In his view, "Painting is the externalization of the personality and spiritual connotation of the painter." In the eyes of the painter, life is only used as a spiritual reference, and the objective objects must touch the indescribable emotions in the painter's heart, and the painter has the impulse to paint. And this inexplicable emotional impulse, under the painter's pen, is endowed with expressive lines, ink marks, colors and expressed through the overall structure of the picture, which is the truth of painting, the real picture is full of cosmic philosophy, what open and close echo, dense virtual reality, counting white and black, if it is like leaving, etc., that is metaphysical reality, not the reality of life in the general sense. ”
Jiang Wenzhan mentioned that the context of the development of art has become his personal feelings today. The current weakness of the art market is conducive to the "falling out of the water", the false moisture has gone down, and the real artwork has appeared, which is also an opportunity to give the artist an opportunity to fall silent, think about art, and create art. Conscious artists use this time to create really good works. Because the market is too hot is not necessarily a good thing, capital involves too much, more or less will affect the creation of art.
In the interview, Jiang Wenzhan twice mentioned that the creation must respect the aesthetic principle, such as Zhou Dunyi's "Love Lotus Saying" mentioned that "to say chrysanthemum, the flower of the hermit also", and in reality, some places not only cultivate chrysanthemums into peonies as rich as peonies, naturally, the chrysanthemums painted also lose their original spiritual connotation.
"I don't think painting has to mix elegance and vulgarity, which are two very different tastes. Elegant and conventional are in their place, and elegant things must be done by elegant people to play with. Although the number of people is small, it represents the excellence and essence of human culture; the mundane things are done by the people in the slang lanes and go lively. This is a bit similar to Zhou Dunyi's saying that 'the love of peonies is suitable for everyone'! ”
Flower love, bird interest, water love, stone interest, pen love, ink interest, have become a vivid display of Jiang Wenzhan's individual life state. His flower and bird paintings are indeed in line with the spirit of Western painting, the traditional flower and bird painting realistic freehand drawing and Western abstract modelivism for artistic reconstruction, in this regard, Jiang Wenzhan is undoubtedly the first to open the window to see the world, many of his works are positioned with the common aesthetic language of the East and the West, his works formed both balanced and harmonious and full of tension of artistic brilliance, enough to let the traditional national art of flower and bird painting into the world art hall.
In the contemporary Chinese painting world where masters gather, Jiang Wenzhan integrates the colors, spaces, compositions and other elements of Western painting into the dotted lines of traditional ink painting and the rhyme of ink colors, and at the same time, with the help of his super modeling ability, he successfully completed the breakthrough of visual image and climbed to a new artistic peak. (Reporter Han Yan)
Source: Shenzhou Magazine